Transport tunnels are employed in communications, networks, and networking equipment (e.g., routers, switches, hubs, etc.) to route data between endpoints, such as between provider edge (PE) routers on the edge of a provider network. In some instances, transport tunnels may be used to forward packets through a network that does not support the particular packet protocol in use. For example, a transport tunnel may be used to forward a non-IP packet across an IP network, multicast packets across a unicast network, etc.
Services (e.g., leased lines, virtual leased lines (VLL), etc.) may be bound to a transport tunnel and often numerous services may be associated with a single transport tunnel. However, with numerous services, effective service management is also difficult to implement. This limits the ability of networks to efficiently implement and operate services across core networks, leading to significant time and expense in both managing the transport tunnels as well as the services that connect to them. Further, besides transmitting data packets, capabilities for testing, monitoring, and managing transport tunnels may be difficult where large numbers of services are involved.
Existing protocols and standards allow the configuration and connectivity of a transport tunnel, such as a label switched path (LSP), to be verified (e.g., LSP ping). However, existing tools do not address adequately the need to be able to verify service configuration and connectivity.
Thus, a solution is needed that facilitates the operation, administration, and maintenance of services used to transport data across a network.